Boulder County plans for emerald ash borer attack

Fairgrounds plans ahead for ash disease, planting new mix of trees

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There are about 100 ash trees on the Boulder County Fairgrounds. Joe LaFollette is betting that he'll lose them all.

No, the pest known as the emerald ash borer hasn't made it to Longmont yet. But with the insect as close as Boulder, LaFollette knows it's only a matter of time and that he can't afford to sit still.

And so, the fairgrounds forest is growing.

"We just know it's inevitable," said LaFollette, the fairgrounds manager. "So meanwhile, we're planting trees and taking every option we can to keep things to a minimum."

Boulder County grounds technician Darrin Cole, second from right, helps volunteers Debbie Shantz, left, Justin Gold, and Stephanie Stoss plant a tree at the Boulder County Fairgrounds on Thursday, The county is planting trees in anticipation of the ash trees being lost to the emerald ash borer. (Lewis Geyer / Longmont Times-Call)

Planting is right. Since 2008, about 800 trees have been planted at the fairgrounds, an effort that only became more important after the discovery in Boulder County of the beetle called the emerald ash borer. The borer infests ash trees, feeding on the tree's tissue until it dies. Infested trees can also be extremely fragile, thus vulnerable to high winds.

On Thursday, the fairgrounds began planting "understory trees," trees placed near an existing ash that can help fill the gap when the ash goes down. And the plan is to have a bit of variety, with more than a dozen different kinds.

Some types are going in all over the place, such as linden, hackberry and honey locust trees. Others might be seen in specific spots: a Chanticleer pear tree near the south parking lot, say, or an autumn blaze maple near the campground.

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And two special guests will soon have a home near the midway. A pair of sapling clones from the champion cottonwood tree in Hygiene, which died in 2012, will be planted there in two or three weeks, as soon as a construction project nearby is done.

A few ash trees that were already in poor shape (not due to the borer) have been removed and fairgrounds workers are putting out beetle traps so they'll have early warning — and perhaps keep ahead of the damage, LaFollette said, if an infestation is slow enough.

The idea is that even after the arrival of the borer, there will still be a forest at the fairgrounds. It just won't be the same forest.

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